You can blame this on bureaucracy or USACE finickiness, but it must be noted that this pattern of delays fits very well with the Bush administration's initial aim to delay any discussion or commitment to Category 5 protection for South LA until they were on their way out of office.

But the relentless focus here is on character, which is unusual in an academic satire -- Pnin's finickiness, his drab researches, his lurches toward love and especially his awkwardness in everything from speaking the English language to putting on his overcoat.

Like every emotion it is only in part adapted to our lives, and in those people where it becomes a prominent emotion it is a great mischief worker, subordinating life to finickiness and hindering the growth of generous feeling.